Disconnected

Chapter Four-If Only I Could

"Break a leg!" Kylie told Lynn as the blonde walked up towards the small makeshift stage at the front of the bar. "Or you know, don't. It might be embarrassing."

"Maybe." Lynn teased back. She stopped in front of the stage while one of the bartenders, Mitchy, set up the microphone stand.

"Well wasn't that a treat?" Mitchy said to the crowd present, referring to the group of teen boys who had just finished playing. The small audience of about thirty people all put down their drinks to applaud as the two boys made their way off stage. The brunet looked about seventeen years old and so did the ginger. They had played a few originals and ended with an acoustic cover of Mike Posner's 'I Took a Pill in Ibiza.' They did an amazing job on their songs; Lynn and Kylie were both impressed. The harmonising was perfect. Lynn would be lying if she said it hadn't intimidated her a little. She wondered what it would be like to have somebody to play with, somebody who knew what they were doing and could critique her properly.

"Next we'd like to introduce a new face to the stage. Let's give a warm welcome to Lynn Corby from right here in Sadowa, Ontario." announced Mitchy. She sweetly reached for Lynn's hand to gently pull her up onto the small platform and position her beside the mic.

Lynn thanked her then leaned over to place her dark cherry coloured Martin guitar onto a stand a few feet away from herself. Stepping up to the microphone she saw that nearly the entire audience in the small bar was looking straight at her. Yikes. Lynn swallowed the nerves that were building up in the back of her throat and breathed in deeply. In the front of the audience Kylie stood, smiling widely, giving Lynn two thumbs up.

"Hi everyone, my name's Lynn but I guess you already know that." she finally said earning a few chuckles from the crowd. "This is actually my first time performing in front of anybody besides my roommate who has ever so kindly dragged me into here so I'm going to keep it short, I promise."

"Woo Lynn!" Kylie shouted from the side of the stage causing the listeners to laugh again. That was something that Kylie was good for, she had the gift that made people laugh. She never failed to lighten situations and put everybody at ease, the gift that Lynn was extremely grateful for at the moment. Not only had Kylie set the light and positive mood in the audience, she'd also managed to calm her best friend's nerves down slightly.

Behind the guitar stood a tambourine fastened to a kick drum, a weird concoction Lynn had thought of in the middle of the night after remembering seeing one with a tassel and license plate on pinterest the day before. She referred to it as her little hobbostomper. Lynn tightened the knob attached to the pedal and brought it out front, just a few inches back from the mic stand. Finally, she reached over and grabbed her guitar, slinging the strap over her body so that it rested on her left shoulder and left the guitar hanging just above her waist.

"Okay so this first one is a cover of a favourite of mine, it's called If I Could by Jack Johnson. I hope you enjoy it."

Lynn's fingers started off on the fourth and fifth fret, then slid down to the seventh, eventually making their way up to the second and fourth and down again to the ninth. She continued the pattern twice before adding the beat from the kick drum into the melody. This time around, she closed her eyes and let the lyrics roughly flow from her mouth.

A brand new baby was born yesterday just in time

Papa cried baby cried said your tears are like mine

She took a second to look out into the audience to see their reactions; big mistake. Now the nerves that she had swallowed earlier had bubbled back again and weren't going down. Lynn was so busy thinking about how nervous she was that she'd missed the next part in the song. Instead of going right to the next line, she kept picking the pattern and stomping on the pedal but she forgot to sing the lyrics. Lynn caught Kylie's eye. Kylie gave her an encouraging smile, mouthing for her to keep going as she knew Lynn had made a mistake from hearing the song a million times before.